How to override a property that was set in the command line via "-D..."

[Al Le]

user@ant.apache.org

How to override a property that was set in the command line via "-D..."

Hello.

Could someone please help me with the following situation?

I have some ant scripts that are used in two ways:

1. Standalone build, i.e. the script is executed directly from the command line
2. As a part of a larger build -- then the script is called via 'ant' from 
another
    script (here we have a main and a called scripts).

Each script uses a property 'outFileName' that specifies where to write some 
output to.
Both the main and the called script use this property. The script gets the 
value of
the property passed from the caller.

The root script (i.e. the one called from the command line) gets passed the 
value of
'outFileName' via the "-DoutFileName=..." option.

When the main script calls a called script, it may specify another value for the
property 'outFileName' (using the nested 'property' element). The called script
should notice no difference how it was called (i.e. whether it is called from 
the
command line or as a called script from another script).

Now the propblem: It turns out that the properties specified via "-D=..." are 
set
as *user* properties. Hence it's not possible to redefine them via the nested
elements. Ant not even using a script task with a call 'project.setProperty()'.

How would you solve this situation? I would not like introduce properties with a
different name, since my goal is to have scripts that can be 'customized' by
specifying a property with a well known name ('outFileName') -- be it on the
command line or trough a nested element of an ant task. Thik of it as of script
interface.

The only possible solution I can think of is to specify a custom property 
helper,
but that's too much IMO and makes scripts not 'portable'.

Here's an example that I hope would explain the problem (I use ant 1.8.4 but I 
think
the same problem would also occur with ant 1.9.x):


-- Main build file 'main.xml' --

<project name="Main" default="run">
        
    <target name="run">
        <echo>Main: outFileName: ${outFileName}</echo>
        
        <ant antfile="called.xml" target="run">
                <property name="outFileName" value="OTHER VALUE"/>
        </ant>
    </target>
        
</project>


-- Called build file 'called.xml' --
<project name="Called" default="run">
        
    <target name="run">
        <echo>Called: outFileName: ${outFileName}</echo>
    </target>

</project>


-- Command line --
ant -f main.xml -DoutFileName=START


-- Actual output --
run:
     [echo] Main: outFileName: START
run:
     [echo] Called: outFileName: START


-- Expected (desired) output --
run:
     [echo] Main: outFileName: START
run:
     [echo] Called: outFileName: OTHER VALUE


Any help will be much appreciated.

Al

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